


the fair wrought house

by pyotr



Series: assassin's creed works [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-09-01 00:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20249431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyotr/pseuds/pyotr
Summary: ch. 7:he knew that doubt begot doubt, but jacob had always been good at doubting himself and sometimes the sheer yearning wrapped around his throat like a noose.





	1. the one which is sweet (jacob/abberline)

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr @freddyabberline
> 
> yes i know that frederick would have been married or freshly widowed during the timeline of the main game. what about it.

“i think,” jacob says slowly and with gravity, “that freddy has a crush on you.”

evie’s first reaction is to scoff- because _crushes _were things for children, not men and women grown- or to laugh, because, well. abberline, interested in _her?_

hardly.

she does the former because doing the latter would give jacob too much satisfaction, fuel his already intolerable smugness, and it’s only when he frowns at her that she realizes he had been serious. or as serious as jacob ever got, really.

she says, “not in the least.”

jacob rolls his eyes at her and flaps his hand, as if waving away her objection. “you should see him when we hand in bounties, evie; that’s a man absolutely sick with puppy love.”

evie doesn’t go on the next bounty hunt. she makes up an excuse and spends the time talking about flowers with henry, instead.

* * *

the next time jacob mentions abberline, though, he cuts himself off mid-sentence with a surprised cough and doesn’t continue.

“jacob?” evie asks, and there’s concern there despite the thorny rift between them, because for all else he’s still her _brother._ “are you alright?”

“just lovely,” he responds, sounding strange. evie catches a glance at the queer expression on his face before he ducks his head. he’s never been shy before, not about anything; evie should know, having spent all twenty years of her life at his side.

suspicion rears itself in the back of her brain, restless and niggling, but she doesn’t press save for, “what were you saying about mister abberline?”

“nothing,” jacob says quickly, “nothing at all.”

the first time afterwards that she sees abberline is in the fallout of twopenny’s murder, and she can’t help but feel some sort of sympathy for the poor man. he looks frazzled, and tired, and more than a little desperate, but he’s thankful when she replaces the missing printing plates, and all without ever drawing her blade.

“nicely done, miss frye,” abberline says to her approvingly, and his relief is evident in his voice, one more crisis averted. “a deft touch, as always.”

evie offers a smile in reply, something polite in response to the compliment, and abberline doffs his hat and turns to leave. at the last moment though, she reaches out catches his forearm, the both of them seeming surprised at the action.

“i’m sorry,” she says, dropping her hand as if burned, “but, i was wondering... have you seen jacob lately? and has he seemed strange to you?”

“besides the bank debacle?” there’s exasperation in abberline’s face and voice but he’s fond with it, and even though he rolls his eyes his expression still goes all soft, the same way that jacob had pointed out to her some weeks earlier. “i haven’t seen him since he killed twopenny, but he seemed fine then, if a bit nervous. i’d thought it merely nerves. was i wrong?”

no, it was most definitely not _her _that abberline was interested in.

“not at all, sergeant,” evie says, leaning back on her heels, and he watches her with raised brows, curious. “in fact, i believe that you are completely correct.”

* * *

the next time the bring in a bounty, evie watches her brother closely.

they haul the limp, unconscious body of their target between them, each slinging one of his meaty arms over their shoulders and dragging his feet through the dirt. evie never much enjoyed bringing in bounties; it was messy and too often ended in all-out brawls, and to her it felt too much like doing someone else’s work. jacob loved these sort of fights, she knew, exhilarated every time his knuckle dusters met some unfortunate’s face with a sick-sounding _crunch._

it is abberline that awaits them in the shady, damp alley. it’s always abberline.

“and he’s alive?” the sergeant was saying, turned in his seat to watch them shove the unconscious body into the buggy. he sounded dubious.

(not without cause; they’d brought him more than one dead body to deliver to his superiors, in the past.)

evie says, “of course.”

jacob says, “ye of little faith!”

abberline looks between the two of them, and evie pretends not to notice the way his eyes stick on jacob just a heartbeat too long to be casual. then he huffs a sigh, his shoulders slumping and the reins held loosely in his hands.

“i suppose i should be grateful, then,” he says with a touch of wryness, “for not killing him. you’ve done me a service; thank you, both of you.”

jacob absolutely _beams. _

* * *

there is someone else on the train.

someone that’s not meant to be there, at least. there were people coming and going at nearly every station, of course- a rook or two would swing in for a meal or to deliver or retrieve something- but few stayed more than an hour or so, and certainly none of them in _their car._

she shares a brief hello with agnes, meeting the woman’s raised eyebrows and expectant expression with a shrug.

someone laughs before the sound is smothered, and it comes from the car that evie shares with her brother rather than behind them, from the car that the rooks often occupy while aboard.

after exchanging one last glance with agnes, evie creeps forward, swaying with the train as it bumps over the tracks in the way she’d learned to do early on. outside, the brief gap of empty air between where the cars connect, the thunder of the the train feels almost deafening.

that morning she had drawn all the curtains as usual, and she’s thankful for it now as she peeks through the small window on the door that opens into the car. it meant that she could see inside clearly, see her brother and abberline sitting side-by-side.

it would have been innocent, evie thinks, if not for how close together they were, pressed thigh-to-thigh, abberline’s hand resting on jacob’s knee. it’s an action that seems familiar between the two of them, and there’s a softness to jacob’s face that she’s never seen there before, so at odds with the image of the suave heartbreaker that he seemed to project.

she should have interrupted. a thousand things pop into her head at once- their father’s voice, _don’t let personal feelings interfere with the mission, _the difficulty of maintaining friendships outside of the creed- but she does nothing. there were so few things that made jacob happy these days, _truly _happy, that even despite their disagreements she was loathe to take this away from him.

she ducks out of view just as abberline glances over and slinks into the other car. agnes watches as she quietly, quietly closes the door behind her, even though any sound it made would be lost in the rumbling of the train.

“well?” agnes asks, intent and curious. bertha was her train, after all, and the fryes all but her charges. “what foolishness is he up to this time?”

evie just smiles and raises a finger to her lips.


	2. would i not have walked those roads (jacob/abberline)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a lot of headcanon here to unpack

“i need your help.”

they are words that he has heard often enough, but not from jacob frye, never. he had always been the one needing jacob’s help instead, the man- however reckless- always capable, self-sufficient. jacob was a man able to carry the needs of others and remain unburdened, unbothered.

frederick had admired that about him, once.

but now, now jacob stands at the door to his apartment, looking tired and soaked through from the storm outside, more haggard than frederick has ever seen him. and not only that- because nothing with jacob can ever be anything even remotely approaching simple or uncomplicated- but there is a child in his arms, just as wet, watching frederick with wide eyes.

wordless, frederick steps aside to let him in.

“thank you, freddy,” jacob says without his usual haughtiness. that too is surprising: the simple gratitude, his name. no one else called him that but jacob, and they’d not spoken in so long that he’d nearly forgot about it.

“what in god’s name were you doing out in that storm?” is the first thing frederick says after he’s closed the door. jacob is trying to set the child- baby, really, it can’t be more than a year or two old- in his nice armchair by the dimly smoldering hearth, prying chubby hands from his clothing only to have them grip somewhere else.

“coming here,” jacob says with a touch of familiar cheek.

frederick just sighs because he knows well enough by now when he’ll not get anything more out of jacob, and this was clearly one of those times. instead of pressing, he pulls his robe closer and goes to poke at the banked fire. “dare i ask where you got the child?”

were it anyone else he’d be more worried, but jacob had always had a soft spot for children, he knew, and for all of his flaws he was ultimately a good man. any child in jacob’s care- however they got there, showing up on his doorstep in the middle of the night- would be _safe. _

“you’ve been married,” jacob tells him, and though he flashes a grin it’s not as bright as it used to be. “i know you know where babies come from, freddy.”

frederick had been with the metropolitan police for over a decade; there was little left that could surprise him. and perhaps this shouldn’t have- jacob was and always had been a notorious flirt, he’d known this, so many of their early interactions had been _characterized _by it- but he still found him taken aback, just for a moment, before he rallied himself.

“i see,” he managed. he didn’t much want to think about it, about the sharp stab of sheer feeling that had lanced through him at the thought. it had been at least two years since they’d last met; it wasn’t unreasonable to think that jacob would have moved on.

that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel rather uncharitable about it, though.

“his name’s nate,” jacob says, casting him a side-long glance. “nathaniel.”

looking at the child, at nathaniel, frederick could see the resemblance, or what would be resemblance in the future. they shared a nose, the same dark hair, and nathaniel’s eyes were the same shape and color as jacob’s sister’s. he had the stubbornness too, frederick noted with some vague amusement, watching as jacob all but fought to disentangle himself and the way nathaniel was having none of it; the boy was most definitely a frye.

“you’ve no dry clothes, do you?” frederick asks after a moment, resigned, eyeing the way that jacob dripped along his floor.

“not a scrap,” jacob replies.

sometime later after clothes are changed and frederick has made them both tea, all three of them are seated in front of the now-merrily burning fire, nathaniel dozing in his father’s lap. frederick can’t help but steal glances at jacob every now and then in the quiet, as if looking away for too long would make him disappear. he looked strange, dressed in one of frderick’s nightshirts, too broad in the shoulders and the hem just a touch too short. still, it was dry, and that alone made it leaps and bounds preferable to the clothes he’d arrived in.

“so,” frederick starts with no real direction. he’d reclaimed his armchair, with jacob and nathaniel being exiled to the tatty sofa he’d had little use for thus far.

“so,” jacob mirrors. he’s looking into the fire, the light reflecting gold in his dark eyes. something uncomfortable twists around his mouth. “i’m... i suppose i owe you an apology, freddy.”

tonight was just surprise after surprise, then. “an apology?”

“an apology,” jacob confirms, and he turns to look directly at him. frederick’s stomach flips, as if he were a nervous little boy instead of a man grown. as with everything, jacob just had that way about him: an almost unbearable intensity that was magnetizing and unnerving in equal measure. 

“what for?”

jacob’s mouth works for a moment, soundlessly, as if he were searching for the right words. then he sighs. “i left without saying goodbye. i’m not _good _with goodbyes, freddy, but that doesn’t mean it was fair. so... i’m sorry.”

“you’re a changed man, jacob frye,” frederick says after a long moment. “did some soul-searching, did you?”

the taught line of jacob’s shoulders loosen and he smiles, that same boyish, lopsided smile that frederick knew well, and he realizes that the other man had been just as unsure as he had been.

“evie said that parenthood ages you,” the assassin says wryly.

“parenthood,” frederick muses, “indeed. jacob, how did you get yourself into this?”

“her name was catherine,” comes the reply. “she was very... ah, pretty.”

jacob’s explanation touches very little on catherine herself, just that the time they’d spent together had been a mistake, really, and that she hadn’t wanted to be a mother, and while he hadn’t particularly wanted to be a father he’d taken one look at that baby and been lost. jacob says, “i’ve never much liked babies- they’re smelly and messy and cry too much- and i’d been planning on leaving at a, a church, or something, but then he grabbed my finger and wouldn’t let go.”

it’s a sweet story, really, and frederick smiles just slightly. it was clear that jacob adored his son, and frederick swallows back the jealousy that sits bitter on the back of his tongue. he’d known that martha was sick when they married but he thought that she’d recover, that they’d have more time; he’d let himself have two months of dreaming about family and children and fatherhood before his wife had died just weeks after their wedding.

“he’s lucky to have you,” he says when the quiet stretches on just a moment too long.

jacob smiles down at nathaniel in his arms and drags his knuckles- scarred, swollen from being broken just a few times too many- across the boy’s cheek, infinitely gentle. “i’m not so sure.”

“why so?”

“i don’t have anything to give him,” jacob answers, and the honesty stings. “i’ve no home. evie’s my only family left, and she’s in india. i don’t want him to grow up like i did; i want him to be happy, and loved, and _normal.”_

for all that frederick knew about jacob- brash and reckless, impudent to the point of shamelessness, but painfully compassionate beneath it all- he knew little of the man’s life, of his family and his childhood, of his mysterious order. 

“he has you,” frederick repeats, leaning forward and bracing his forearms on his knees. it’s his turn to stare into the fire. “and your rooks, who, by the way, have been no little cause of trouble. and he has me. you have me.”

“do i?” jacob asks, and though it’s been years since they’d spoken- years since frederick had maybe-possibly loved him- he nods, just once, and he swears he can hear jacob swallow thickly.

“i named him after you,” jacob says abruptly.

frederick looks up, startled. “pardon?”

“i named him after you.” a deep breath. “nathaniel frederick frye.”

“oh, dear.” the words are his, and he sounds winded, surprised. 

“i don’t regret it,” jacob says stubbornly.

“more the fool you,” frederick replies, still stunned, and they lapse into silence after that.

it’s a lot to take in, this new, changed jacob and his son, his whom he had _named after frederick, _here in his home. the last he had seen or heard from jacob, the man had given him a cheeky wink as he climbed out his bedroom window in the early hours of the morning, and frederick had rolled over- into the warm sheets where jacob had just been- and fallen back asleep. 

and then, he’d disappeared for two years.

it had hurt, at first, the abandonment, but frederick had scolded himself for it. he had never asked anything of jacob, had never expected anything of him, and anyone who’d spent five minutes in the assassin’s company could see him as restless; it was only sense that he’d up and leave, someday. he got over it, he healed, he moved on with his life, and tonight he had opened his door to find jacob there, again.

“jacob,” frederick says, and his voice sounds loud in the quiet, over the crackling of wood in the hearth, “why did you come here?”

jacob seems surprised and then sheepish in turn, shrugging his shoulders. “the truth?”

“naturally.”

“you were closest to the train station.” it’s said like a secret, like something in confidence. “also, you’re someone safe. someone i trust.”


	3. when your war is over (evie & jacob)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let it be known that i fucking despise roth/jacob as a pairing

jacob had nightmares. they were a recent development.

evie knew this because where once jacob would sleep like the dead as soon as his head hit the pillow, he now tossed and turned, his face pinched, murmuring incoherently in his dreams. she’d watched him wake once or twice, or had woken him herself, and he’d scrambled for a moment, disoriented and almost panicked. evie had ached to see it, that brief flash of terror in her brother’s face.

she didn’t ask him what he dreamed of. maybe she would have, once, but they weren’t those people anymore; evie had made her choices and jacob had made his, and though they ultimately came to the same destinations, they had taken separate roads to get there. more like than not he’d give some sort of glib answer anyway, her questions sliding off him like oil on water.

but that didn’t stop the nightmares, or the tired, snappish jacob that they begot. 

eventually though, when all is said and done and crawford starrick is a cooling corpse, when they stumble their way back to the train in some exhausted haze of disbelief, jacob sinks to the floor and breaks. after a moment, evie follows him down. 

as children, the two of them had been close. it was less due to any actual similarity and more because there were few other children to play with, but the fact remained that they had once been the best of friends, and that they had held each other in the highest confidence.

(until their father returned home, of course, and forced a wedge between them in the form of their training; evie had since realized that their father had treated them difference from the start, holding evie aloft as some shining heir and casting jacob aside like some unfortunate, blighted spare.)

evie knew that jacob kept secrets from her; she’d be foolish to believe otherwise. and it wasn’t like she didn’t keep things from him as well- she most certainly did- but that was what growing up and growing apart was like. 

but she holds him now as he cries, the both of them crumpled on the floor of their shared train car as quiet sobs shake jacob’s shoulders. she combs her fingers through his hair and shushes him like their grandmother used to do, rocking gently back and forth.

“it will be alright,” she tells him, her voice pitched soft and soothing, “everything’s alright. we’re safe, jacob, we’re okay.”

“they were monsters,” he manages, and his voice is thick, muffled against her shoulder. “all of them.”

“who?” evie asks, “the templars?”

“yeah, the templars.”

he was correct, of course- each of the templars they’d toppled were terrible people- but there had been a pause before he answered, a deprecating lilt to his voice. it was _personal, _moreso than it should have been.

“tell me what’s wrong,” she says quietly, “tell me what happened.”

“the alhambra,” he starts and then stops, taking a deep, shaky breath.

“the music hall?”

“maxwell- roth, roth, he... burned it down.”

evie pauses, and she has to beat back the habitual irritation that rears its head. what’s done was done, she told herself, and whatever jacob had done in the past was already done. “and you were there?”

he nods and begins to draw away, and evie lets him go without protest. he doesn’t move far though, turning away from her and sniffing as he rubs at his eyes. “yes. i was.”

“and that’s what you have nightmares about?”

“how did you-?” he begins, surprise coloring his tone, before he shakes his head. “i suppose so.”

that unnerved her. assassins were meant to be unflappable, ready for anything. “what did roth do?”

“everything. he set fire to the stage, he set his men to blocking the exits,” he hesitates, “he kissed me as i killed him.”

evie lets out a gusty sigh, reaching for jacob’s hand; he lets her take it, even squeezes her fingers. a little kiss wouldn’t normally bother jacob, but she had a better idea now of what was haunting him. jacob was a man fickle in his passions, but when he felt things he felt them _deeply, _and he fell over himself at any bit of meaningful, positive attention. 

_bravest man in london, _roth had said in the invitation they’d both agreed to ignore. he’d probably had jacob following him around like a dog looking for table scraps.

“oh, jacob,” she says sadly, dragging her thumb across his knuckles. it may not have been love, not really, but it was certainly infatuation, and the betrayal had clearly hurt jacob deeply. first attaway, now roth- his desperation for approval bordered on pitiful, and she wasn’t naive enough to think that their father had nothing to do with it.

he is turned away from her but the way his shoulders are hunched is unmistakable, the way he curls in on himself. evie aches for him, wishes that she could take some of his burden on herself, even if she doesn’t quite understand it. 

(she tries to imagine what it would have been like if lucy thorne had kissed _her, _kissed her while she was dying for evie’s blade in her throat, but evie found she couldn’t quite conjure the image. jacob was her brother, and while there were many things she didn’t understand about him, that didn’t mean she didn’t love him.)

“it’s over,” she whispers as she reaches out to pull him back to her. he goes unresisting, tucking himself under her chin and curling his arms about her in turn. “it’s over, jacob, and we’re safe, and alive, and we can rebuild. we can heal.”


	4. a god but in myth (nathaniel frye)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots of headcanon & set during the jtr dlc
> 
> nathaniel is jacob's son mentioned in one of the previous fics, he'd be about 15/16 in 1888.

nathaniel hates it, all the waiting, the fear and anxiety that seeps from every pore. he’d been told that he was like his father in that way, creatures of restless energy and impetuousness. 

but the waiting made him itch, made him want to crawl out of his own skin.

he’d gone to the abberlines first, pounding on the door and hollering in the night until frederick had thrown open the door with a sleepy, bewildered look and a pistol in his hand. he’d dropped the gun immediately upon catching what must have been a wretched expression on nathaniel's face, and the boy let himself be pulled inside.

(he’d never admit it but the way frederick had held him tight until he could stop shaking had felt like the best thing in the world.)

after that, though, he’d scarcely been allowed to leave the house without some sort of escort, and though emma did her best to soothe him, he still chafed under the surveillance. he was an_ assassin-_ or training to be one, at least- and he could more than handle himself. he says as much to frederick one morning, catching the man by the arm before he slipped out the door.

“let me help,” he’d said earnestly. “i can fight, you know that, uncle freddy. you’ve_ seen_ me fight.”

“a brawl in a fighting ring is hardly equivalent to working a murder investigation,” frederick had replied, and though he had been aiming for wry he just sounded tired.

“well, i can do that, too,” nathaniel insisted, curling his fingers tighter into the sleeve of frederick's coat. “father always taught me to be observant, and i can see things that other people can’t, just like him.”

“nate,” frederick had sighed, placing his hand over nathaniel's where it rested on his forearm. the affectionate nickname made him feel ill. “you know I can’t do that. and you know all the reasons_ why.”_

nathaniel let go of frederick's coat and all but tore his hand from the man’s grip, back up a step. he_ did_ know, was the thing: that they thought him still a child, chiefly, but also that this wasn’t a matter to be handled by novice assassins; it was a police investigation, and police investigations were no place for boys.

“they’re stupid reasons,” he’d spat, and was mortified at the burning of tears in his eyes. “i can_ help.”_

he wasn’t allowed to help, and things only got worse. frederick refused to talk about the case during the rare times he came home, leaving nathaniel to glean any information he could from newspapers instead; there was always something about it, the headlines appropriately bloody, the articles sordid, and sometimes even a photograph or artists's rendition of the scene. it was hard to tell fiction from fantasy.

(frederick's name was, of course, splashed across the papers as well, in praise or in derision depending on the day. emma had long since stopped reading the news, nathaniel knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.)

also, there was never a single mention of his father.

“uncle freddy,” nathaniel had asked hollowly on one of the nights that the inspector was home, “do you think father is alive?”

the way frederick grimaced- just slightly- and turned away without speaking was answer enough.

* * *

he doesn’t learn that his aunt is in london until she comes to the house one evening with frederick, their heads bent together as they talk in low tones. nathaniel can’t hear what’s being said, but he has idea enough.

“nate,” frederick says, catching sight of him on the stairs. “you’re still awake?”

it_ was_ rather late. or early, depending on perspective. “couldn’t sleep.”

evie is still quiet, her expression tired and grief-worn, but she scrounges up a smile for him, small. “it’s good to see you, nathaniel. i’m-”

“my aunt, i know,” he cuts in and he leans forward, gripping hard at the banister. “are you here to find father?”

the smile slips from her face. “i hope so.”

“he’s alive,” nathaniel tells her resolutely, his voice hard, but he doesn’t miss the glance that evie shares with frederick.

* * *

sometimes nathaniel hears things he’s not supposed to.

occasionally this is an accident; he doesn’t _mean _to, not really, and most of the time the things he hears aren’t all that important to him anyway. as a child it had been his father and frederick speaking, quiet arguments not meant for young eyes or ears. he hadn’t understood what they were about at the time and didn’t remember enough to parse it now, but it was enough to make him curious, even if he never pursued it.

now, though, he listens to emma and frederick speak in hushed tones, quiet so as not to wake him, but he knows which steps on the staircase creak and he picks his way down until he’s close enough to hear.

“you’re never home, fred,” emma says, and it sounds almost like she’s begging. “you don’t eat, you don’t sleep. you look like a corpse, and you _will_ burn yourself out if you keep this up.”

“this monster needs to be stopped, emma. i can’t rest until then, until i know that no one else will fall victim to that fate.”

“other officers can do just the same,” she says, “it doesn’t have to be you. i feel like i haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“it _does _have to be me. there are things about this case that no one else knows, that no one else _can _know.”

“it’s not just about those poor girls, is it?” emma sounds sad when she speaks, wistful, and nathaniel doesn’t know why. “it’s about jacob.”

he hears frederick take a sharp breath at the same time he does, the mention of his father’s name shooting through him like a lightning strike. frederick says, “emma, don’t.”

“i can’t make you come home,” emma continues, and now she just sounds tired. that’s all anyone was these days, tired. “i can’t make you take a rest. but, fred... i pray you don’t lose sight of those who love you.”

“i’m seeing quite clearly,” is the last thing nathaniel hears frederick say before he climbs back up the stairs.

* * *

he doesn't know that anything is amiss until frederick storms into the house and says in his strongest, most authoritative voice, "everyone out! _now!"_

nathaniel has never heard him use that voice before- he knew objectively that his uncle freddy was _important, _that he had a considerable amount of subordinates, but he'd only ever seen that softer side of him, the side that smiled at him and slipped him a bit of extra spending money with a conspiratorial wink, the side that had read him stories before bed as a child when his father couldn't be there. he stands and moves to scuttle out with the constables as they leave the room, but frederick catches him by the shoulder instead.

"go get blankets, and as much hot water as you can carry," he says gravely, giving nathaniel a squeeze before releasing him. "miss nightingale is on her way."

he scrambles to do as he's told, dashing upstairs to raid the bedrooms, the linen closets, for clean bed clothes. the hot water was harder; he runs into the kitchen and finds the largest pot he can and empties all the wash basins in the house into it, setting it to heat. when he returns to the sitting room there's a rook standing cross-armed in the doorway, and the familiar green coat is more reassuring than ever.

(he'd forgotten what it was like, the safety he'd felt around the rooks; there were still those loyal to his father, of course, those he remembered from childhood, but they'd quickly been outnumbered and run underground.)

"what's happened?" nathaniel asks desperately as he stretches to peer around her. "who's here?"

"nate," she says, moving so he can't see into the room, "nate, duck, you know i can't..."

evie appears at her shoulder, covered in dirt and blood and her face drawn, but something softens in her expression past the grief. "let him in," she says, "there's someone you should see, nathaniel."

he spares a glance with the rook and slips into the room, sticking close by evie. the fire had been stoked and is flickering happily in the hearth, casting the room in a cheerful glow; a woman that couldn't have been anyone but miss nightingale is scrubbing her hands in one of the basins he'd carted downstairs, and there's blood spotting her apron. frederick was crouched by the couch and holding someone's hand, his expression heartbreakingly tender.

"i should return to the office," he was saying, but he doesn't seem likely to move everywhere. his coat and waistcoat had been shed at some point and he looked tousled, his shirtsleeves pushed to his elbows. "there's still so much work to do, paperwork to file... arrangements to be made..."

nathaniel is almost afraid of what he'll find when he rounds the couch, taking slow, hesitant steps.

the first thing he thinks is, _he's alive. _it's what he'd been telling everyone for months, but the relief still rushes through him regardless and he can feel his breath stutter, his eyes sting. jacob's chest rises and falls with shallow breaths, his face bruised and beaten, and there's a wad of gauze covering his eye, but he was alive. nathaniel sinks to his knees beside the couch and bends his head to jacob's chest; and there, with his father's heartbeat in his ear and frederick's warm hand pressed flat against his back, nathaniel lets himself cry.


	5. the cup that can't be filled (jacob & abberline)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jacob sustained some pretty gnarly damage to his left eye from what we can see at the end of the jack the ripper dlc. on top of that it's unreasonable to believe that jacob only would have been tortured physically; i figure a good way to absolutely torment him is to let him believe that the people he cares about are suffering, too
> 
> historically at this time i believe the abberlines would have been living in clapham, which is just southwest of lambeth.
> 
> (nate/nathaniel is jacob's son, in case you haven't read previous chapters)
> 
> title is from bitter water by the oh hellos, which i very much reccomend

“don’t look so glum, freddy.”

jacob rasps out the words as he tightens his fingers around frederick’s hand, just slightly. frederick stops mid-sentence- he’d thought jacob unconscious but had been talking regardless, regurgitating some story from his time as a beat officer, the same as he’d been doing nearly every day since he and evie had dragged him from the dungeons under lambeth asylum- and stares, and takes a deep, fortifying breath.

“jacob,” he says, and is proud of himself for being able to keep his voice even. “you’re... awake.”

jacob rolls his head to be able to look at him, his left eye carefully bandaged and the rest of his face mottled with bruises in varying states of recovery. he looked almost corpse-like, his cheeks and eyes sunken with hunger, his skin pale and sallow from weeks without sunlight.

“hardly,” jacob says, wry despite everything, “though i could do with more laudanum, if you’d be so kind.”

frederick huffs, annoyed, but the relief that swamps him in nearly overwhelming; jacob had woken only in fits and starts over the past week or so, fevered and incoherent, and frederick had worried for him every hour. he’d never seen jacob so still and quiet, not once, and it had frightened him.

he measures out the laudanum, and they both pretend not to notice how his hands shake.

jacob takes the medication easily enough and leans back into the pillows with a gusty sigh, followed by a wince, and frederick makes a small noise of sympathy. though his worst injury by far was his eye- _blinded, most likely, _miss nightingale had pronounced grimly that night, _his sight is beyond my ability to save- _all of jacob had suffered from the ripper’s abuses in some way or another. frederick had cataloged each and every injury as they were revealed and found himself more furious and heartsick in turns with each one. 

it was good that evie had killed jack. he was a man of the law, a man who believed in justice over revenge, but frederick wouldn’t have been nearly as kind as she. he wouldn’t have given the monster a quick death.

“how to i look?” jacob’s voice is still hoarse, even after water and the laudanum, but frederick supposed that that, too, would heal with time. 

“ghastly,” frederick responds. “you will have to find some other use now than being pretty.”

“what a _charmer. _you thought i was pretty?”

“unfortunately so.”

jacob hums in consideration, his eye closed. the harsh lines cut into his face by pain have smoothed, now, and he looks a little more like the man frederick knew. “i suppose i’ll be dashing enough in an eyepatch.”

“more like a rogue, no doubt.”

“i’ve been a disreputable miscreant since i was fourteen years old,” jacob informs him, his words slurring slightly as the laudanum takes effect. 

“and you’ll finally look the part,” he responds, and warm affection bleeds into his voice; frederick wants, desperately, to reach out and smooth jacob’s hair from his face. he settles for squeezing his fingers, instead. 

jacob smiles, small and lopsided, but beautiful still even on his bruised and beaten face.

they fall silent then, for so long that frederick thought jacob must have fallen back to sleep, before jacob says, “i was so scared, freddy.”

he’d only heard that vulnerability once or twice before, and he aches with it. “of jack?”

“yes,” jacob confirms, and his breathing hitches and he struggles up to level frederick with a solemn look, fuzzy around the edges. “but not for me. for nate. for you.”

“for me?”

“he talked about you,” jacob tells him, and his voice is quieter, though frederick doesn’t know if it’s because of emotion or the laudanum. “he knew you were working the whitechapel murders. he would tell me all these terrible things he’d do to you, or to nate, and there was no way for me to know if you were _safe.”_

“jacob,” is all frederick can say at first, because he’d not expected jacob to still care enough about him to worry at all, let alone enough to be tormented with it. he’d been concerned when jacob had disappeared, of course- but he’d had other things on his plate, had been too preoccupied with murder to fret too much. jacob could handle himself, or so he thought. “nathaniel was safe. he stayed here, with emma, and there was a guard set at all times. he didn’t go anywhere near whitechapel.”

“i didn’t _know,” _jacob insists muzzily. frederick watches as his chin dips and then jerks back up, fighting valiantly against sleep and losing anyway. “i didn’t... i thought... i was _scared.”_

frederick watches the way jacob’s eye flutters and then shuts, how his face eases from pinched to slack, the tension in him melting away into sleep. once he’s sure jacob well and truly is no longer awake, frederick lifts the other man’s hand to his mouth in a fit of daring and presses a kiss to his knuckles. it’s an intimacy he hasn’t been allowed in a long, long time.

but, scared. jacob had been _scared. _

frederick had never known a jacob that was afraid of anything.


	6. the world in its hypocrisy (abberline & jacob)

“i burned down the alhambra,” jacob says before he’s even entirely inside the window.

had he been anyone else, frederick would have shot him; as it was, he slowly lowered his pistol, heartbeat thundering loud with adrenaline in his ears. he might _still _shoot him.

“jacob? you _what?”_

“i burned down the alhambra,” the assassin repeats as he pulls his leg over the window sill and sinks to the floor. “i... i burned...”

frederick can hear the misery in his voice, now, see the way his shoulders are curled inwards in the faint light from outside. he sighs and gently sets his pistol on the table near his bed, deftly flipping down the photo there as well before padding over to where jacob sat slumped against the wall just below the window, the wood floor chilly on his bare feet.

“take some breaths,” frederick urges, and he tries not to sound as tired as he feels. he puts a hand on jacob’s shoulder. “calm down and tell me what’s happened.”

for once in his life jacob listens, draws in a few stilted, shuddering breaths and tucks his head between his knees. this close frederick can smell the smoke and see the ash smeared across his face- but he smells alcohol, too, the faintest whiff, and he’d heard the slurring in jacob’s voice.

“i was at the alhambra,” jacob manages shakily. frederick settles down on the floor close to him, close but not touching, their only point of contact his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “it was... a trap, so obviously a trap, but i didn’t... i went anyway.”

he sniffs, loud. “it was my fault. evie was right- i shouldn’t have gone.”

frederick squeezes his shoulder, a comfort that jacob leans into even as he scrubs at his face, trying to hide the tear tracks that cut through the grime. “why were you at the alhambra, jacob?”

it’s a long, long time before he answers. “do you know the name maxwell roth?”

and, oh, _does _he. frederick draws in a sharp, hissing breath through his teeth, feels the way jacob tensed beneath his hand. the man had a rap sheet kilometers long, though no one had ever managed to keep him behind bars long enough to see him to trial.

something sinks in frederick’s stomach like a leaden weight. he was hardly intimately familiar with roth’s crimes, but from what he knew...

“jacob,” frederick says, “please tell me you didn’t.”

there was so much he turned a blind eye to for jacob and his sister, but aiding roth- in his murdering, his robbing, his wanton destruction and disregard for life and law, his cold-blooded callousness- was something he couldn’t ignore.

jacob make a miserable sort of sound, and that’s answer enough.

“_christ,” _frederick breathes and moves to pull back his hand, but jacob lashes out lightning-fast and holds tight, gloved fingers curling around frederick’s wrist almost hard enough to bruise.

“i killed him, freddy,” jacob says quietly, and then, “i think he loved me.”

frederick goes still. “roth is dead?”

jacob makes a noise in the affirmative.

“but you worked with him?”

“for a bit. he... he wanted to leave a warehouse to burn. there were children inside. we had a disagreement.”

“why, though?” frederick just can’t understand it. “he is- he _was- _a monster. why help him?”

“he wanted to take down starrick,” jacob answers, and then they’re quiet for a long time. when he continues, his voice is very small, “he called me a hero. _the bravest man in london, _he said.”

“oh, jacob.” he can’t stop the pity in his voice because it _was _pathetic, that jacob would be so starved for affection or a kind word that he’d involve himself with such a man.

“freddy,” jacob says suddenly, sitting up straight and turning to face frederick fully. his grip on frederick’s wrist tightens painfully and he looks desperate, wild-eyed. “freddy, i’m just like him, aren’t i? we’re the same, him and me, aren’t we?”

“not in the least,” frederick says, firm and immediate in a way that surprises them both. it was true, though, at least in frederick’s mind; while reckless and impulsive, jacob still had a heart. he still cared about others. he was still _good. _

he’d never met the man, but frederick was fairly sure there hadn’t been anything _good _left in roth for a long, long time.

“i think he loved me,” jacob repeats his words from earlier, still sounding distraught, “why would he do that? why would he love me if we weren’t alike? and what does that say about _me, _that we’re both-?”

the assassin chokes up, and a strange roil of emotion gets caught in frederick’s throat, a tangle he doesn’t want to think too deeply about. “both men?”

jacob swallows thickly and nods. “it’s wrong.”

frederick is a police officer. he’s arrested sodomites, busted molly houses. he believed in god, too, and he prayed, and sometimes he even went to church. but that didn’t mean that either the law or the divine were quite so clear cut.

(loving martha had taught him that. god was meant to be benevolent, but he’d taken her from him after only a few scarce weeks of marriage.

he doesn’t know what to do with this confession from jacob, this almost-unreal moment of raw vulnerability. they were colleagues, and perhaps even friends, and yes, maybe frederick did find himself pleased when given a chance to speak with jacob and more flustered than he ought to be at his teasing, but his own feelings, own thoughts and turmoils- meant _nothing, _not here, not now.)

“if you think it is,” frederick answers eventually, uncomfortable and keenly aware of the distance between them, the warmth of jacob’s hand through his glove, the ash and gin smell of him. “but _only _if you think it is. only god can judge us, jacob, and i think... love is a thing so scarce in this world, it can’t possibly be _bad.”_

he feels almost embarrassed with the way jacob looks at him then, wide-eyed and wondrous as if frederick was something new he’d never seen before, and he tugs the arm still in the other man’s grip. jacob lets go as if he’d been burned, and frederick allows himself only a moment to rub at the bruises already darkening a circle ‘round his wrist.

“you really think so?” jacob asks, and federick eyes him a moment before nodding just once. “oh, freddy, you’re just so full of surprises.”

he can’t help the smile that twitches about his mouth at that, or the sparkle- however dull- that’s re-entered jacob’s eye. but then a thought occurs to him and it slips away, his expression falling into a frown. “the alhambra’s an hour’s walk from st. pancras.”

jacob stills. “so it is.”

“why did you come here, jacob?”

the man thinks about that for a moment, expression going distant. “i needed somewhere to go, somewhere i wouldn’t see any of my rooks or, or evie, or _anyone. _i can’t see them right now, i just can’t. it... hurts. i don’t know why.”

“start from the top, then,” frederick sighs, leaning to bump his shoulder against jacob’s. grief was a constant enough companion to frederick that it was almost refreshing to face someone else’s for once. “let’s get you cleaned up, and then you can tell me about roth and the alhambra from the beginning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from an oscar wilde quote: "there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands"
> 
> around this time freddy probably would have been living at the police station in st pancras, kentish town. however, i'm taking some artistic license: freddy was widowed in may of 1868 (after being married for two months, his wife died of tb) and syndicate takes place roughly in july of the same year, so my explanation for this is that he's still living in the flat he shared with martha
> 
> (i've actually been unable to find if/where he shared a home with martha, as they were only married for two months in 1868 and so didn't appear on any census together; they may have been living at the kentish town road police station together, as in the 1881 census he's recorded as living at the 160 commercial street police station with his second wife, emma)
> 
> subtle but important detail (to me): the photo that i mention freddy turning down on his nightstand was the wedding photo of him and martha. during the time period in which the game takes place he would have still been in mourning, as per victorian convention


	7. in the biome of a man's longing (jacob)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots of headcanon here, too. i've definitely referred to stuff i havent put down in fic yet. eventually i'll get back to writing pre-dlc stuff lol

when he thinks too deeply about it, it’s hard for jacob to describe his relationship with freddy.

they’re older now, the both of them, and it’s easier to be more objective with age, but- it’s been two decades, and sometimes he’ll still look at freddy and think, _what if? _

what if he’d stayed? what if he’d not gone to india, not left without a goodbye or an explanation? what if he’d not had nate? what if freddy had never met emma, and instead had taken jacob back and they’d carried on like nothing had ever happened, like they’d never been apart?

(he knew that doubt begot doubt, but jacob had always been good at doubting himself and sometimes the sheer _yearning _wrapped around his throat like a noose.)

but none of those things had happened.

jacob can admit to himself that he’d never really stopped loving freddy, that there was a part of him that never would, and he’s sure that freddy is the same- even through the memory of pain and the fading that comes with time, jacob can remember the argument that he and emma had had, the way she’d had such heartbreak in her voice that jacob could hear even down the hall and the way that the door slamming behind freddy as he left seemed to hush the whole house. 

he can live with it most days, that strange, empty spot right between his lungs. they’d talked, eventually- they’d had their closure. their time together like that was ended, as tended to happen to most things.

but that didn’t mean that _they _ended.

freddy had been a constant in jacob’s life since jacob had shown up on his doorstep in the middle of the night with a baby in his arms, soaked through with rain. one could argue even longer, since that goose chase henry had first sent he and evie on to search for a peeler in disguise. they’d had their ups and downs and their long, awkward years where they were so uncertain around each other they could scarcely stand a conversation, but...

they’d raised a child together, jacob and freddy and emma, they had. and nate had always called jacob _father _and freddy _uncle _and emma _auntie, _but emma was the closest thing to a mother that nate had ever known, and jacob- well, jacob knew he wasn’t the best father, all of the time. freddy and emma, they’d given nate that bit of normalcy that jacob had always wanted for him, and he was grateful to them for that.

he was very different now, from the cocky young assassin that had swanned into london with dreams of changing the world, but freddy was different too, no longer the spunky young beat cop chafing under rules badly enough to work with a couple of murderers. they were _old, _now, both of them, and perhaps not wiser for it but certainly more mature.

jacob cannot describe his relationship with freddy- how can you be both in love with a person and not, at the same time?- but he knows, at least, that he couldn’t imagine his life without it.


End file.
